


I Could Make a Career of Being Blue

by LinguisticJubilee



Series: love looks different without makeup [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, M/M, brief mentions of homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguisticJubilee/pseuds/LinguisticJubilee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping for seventy years has upended Steve's life, but the one thing he never expected to change was his soulmate.</p><p>Looks like he was wrong about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Make a Career of Being Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to [Sweet as Whole](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1678025), set in a universe with the same rules governing soulmates but with no overlap in characters, and can be read alone.
> 
> All my love and eternal thanks to [Nia](http://waroftheposes.tumblr.com/) and [Nicole](http://wizzardblizzard.tumblr.com/), whose skills as betas include impeccable grammar and shouting about fictional characters at three in the morning. 
> 
> Fic title from [I Don't Want to Get Over You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqmd_t84O0A) by the Magnetic Fields.

 

Steve spends three days in the twenty-first century before he even thinks to check his soulmate tattoo. He’s staring at old photos and missing Bucky something awful, and the giant mythological beast of Captain America still somehow includes the lie that Cap never found his soulmate, and Steve just needs to see it. Needs to know that Bucky was real, and that Steve didn’t make him up. He goes into the bathroom and takes his shirt off, twisting to show his shoulder blade in the mirror.

_I bet any girl in America would kill to be in my place right now._

Steve stares in horror at his back in the mirror. Bile rises in his throat. The bathroom walls spin and a roaring fills his ears the way it did when he was a kid and he couldn’t get enough air. He’d thought he was done with the world fucking him over. He was wrong.

He strides out the door, grabbing his t-shirt off the floor and pulling it on as he goes. He runs through hallways and up stairwells, slowing to a walk as he enters the SHIELD workspace. People freeze and stare but they don’t try to stop him, which is good because he’s not sure what he would do if someone talked to him right now.

He marches his way straight to Fury’s office. Someone had obviously told him Steve was coming, because when Steve walks in Fury’s standing behind his glass desk. “Captain,” he says drily, “how can I help you?’

Steve walks straight up to the desk. “What did you do to my tattoo?”

Fury draws back, looking for all the world like he’s surprised. “What the hell?”

Steve hardens his gaze and leans forward. “My tattoo. It’s changed. What did you do to me?”

Fury’s mouth is open, incredulous. “Who the hell do you think we are?” he says slowly. “Who fucks with someone’s mind like that? Do you think we’re evil?”

Steve shakes his head, bristling with anger. “I know my damn _body_ , Fury, and it doesn’t say what it did before.”

“Good for you,” Fury nods sarcastically. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Tattoos don’t just _change!_ ” Steve snaps, pounding the desk.

“Except that they do.” Fury stares at him, then laughs once. “You don’t know, do you? You honestly don’t know, and your repressed, bigoted ass came to blame me for your freakout. I’m sorry your soulmate situation has offended your delicate sensibilities.”

Fury sits in his chair and Steve feels his anger deflate. Steve stays standing, but now it feels like the desk is keeping him upright. His tattoo has changed. Bucky died and then Steve died, and in the meantime Steve’s soul has somehow decided to move on and just leave Steve behind, confused and grieving and still so in love he shakes with it.

Some of that must show up on Steve’s face, because Fury sighs and puts a hand to his temple. “Look, Rogers. It’s a brave new world. Two men can be soulmates. Two women can be soulmates. Someone can have more than one soulmate, sometimes even at the same time. Someone can have a soulmate but not want to fuck them; someone can fuck lots of people but never have a tattoo. And this shit is _okay._ You lost that girl, but congratulations, you get a new one.” He pauses, and raises his head to meet Steve’s eyes. “And for the record, I didn’t know your tattoo changed. Your old SSR file said it was on your left shoulder blade, but no one wrote down what it said.”

Steve pushes away from the desk and walks to the door. “They didn’t want anyone to find out,” he calls over his shoulder. “It offended their delicate sensibilities.”

***

Once upon a lifetime ago, Steve was drawing by the window in his and Bucky’s cramped apartment. He was young and stupid, chest rattling with every breath, but he was happy in a way he wouldn’t be for many years afterwards. He heard the door open and smiled, waiting for Bucky’s loud complaining to begin. But instead, he heard the door close softly and Bucky’s footsteps draw carefully near. Steve looked up and saw Bucky hovering by the edge of the room, arms crossed and looking nervous. “What,” Steve said, raising an eyebrow, “did someone die?”

Bucky let out a breath and crossed the room. “Oh, thank fuck, fucking Hallelujah—” He grabbed Steve’s face and kissed him. Steve closed his eyes and sank into it, because Bucky had clearly had a psychotic break and if this was going to be Steve’s only chance of kissing him he was going to give it everything he had.

Bucky broke away and rested his forehead against Steve’s. “My tattoo appeared today,” he said breathlessly.

Steve recoiled, horrified. “What—then why did you—”

Bucky showed Steve his bare forearm. _What, did someone die?_ was inked along his skin in shiny black. Steve touched the words with shaking fingers. “Bucky…” he whispered. He looked up into Bucky’s eyes. “Do you think mine....?”

Bucky laughed and grinned the grin that made Father Gallagher throw him out of Easter mass. “Let’s find it.”

That night, they lay in Steve’s bed, and Bucky laughed as he traced the words on Steve’s shoulder over and over. _Oh, thank fuck, fucking Hallelujah._

***

Steve doesn’t really give himself the time to think about his tattoo. A Norse god opens a portal over Manhattan, for one, and then after that Steve occupies himself with mission after mission, like he can outrun his fate and never have to meet the stranger whose words are on his back. At one point, however, he musters up the courage to tell Peggy about his new tattoo.

He hadn’t expected her to laugh. “Oh, Steve,” she says, lying in her bed in the retirement home, “I don’t mean to be cruel, but just--it’s so sweet, karma is. It always felt a little unfair how easy you had it. You found Bucky long before your tattoo appeared. You never had that experience of your words mucking up your life. Tattoos are far more likely to add stress to your life than they are to take it away.”

Steve smiles, watching her eyes light up as she teases him. “I never asked, Peggy. Did you find your soulmate?”

“Well now.” Peggy looks away, then meets his eyes with a small smile. “Speaking of mucking things up.” She sits up shakily, and pulls her bathrobe down from where it’s covering her left collarbone. _Want some coffee, sweetheart?_ But before Steve can say anything, she shifts and shows him her right shoulder. _That’s a powerful punch you got there._

Steve stares at that for a while, not knowing what to say. “Peggy…”

“So, two soulmates, one already bonded, and one a woman during the Lavender scare. Oh, and a marriage of convenience to a husband with no tattoo. Life’s been quite the dance, I would say.”

She smiles sweetly at him, but Steve still feels terrible. “I don’t—I didn’t—”

“I didn’t need you to. I needed your love. You didn’t need mine.” She grabs his hand. “Steve, please. You’ve loved the same man from the age of twelve, and you’re so young still. I’m ninety-five. I know that this is the only way I would have been happy. And I am. I am very happy.”

Steve squeezes her hand. “I do love you, you know.”

“Of course,” she says, and the teasing light in her eyes is back. “Your bloody words have been with me since 1939. I think I know that by now.”

***

Steve manages to keep his tattoo hidden from everyone. His file says “soulmate: unknown,” a holdover from the SSR days, and Fury has given Steve the courtesy of not updating it. He hides his tattoo under an undershirt, even when he’s changing, and everyone just quietly assumes his soulmate died while Steve was under the ice.

And then Natasha shoves him into casual clothes after Fury’s death, and he’s just a little too slow to cover it up. “Nice tattoo,” she says later, on the drive to New Jersey. “Soulmate’s a fan, then?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Steve says tightly, keeping his eyes on the road. “Not sure I want to.”

“Aw, I don’t know about that.” Natasha puts an arm behind her head. “She seems nice. Also seems like a ‘she,’ but we don’t want to assume, do we?”

“And you?” He says, trying to challenge her. “You got a soulmate?”

Natasha shrugs and looks out the window. “I had a tattoo once. I burned it off.”

Steve’s eyes dart to her. “ _What?_ ”

She keeps her voice matter-of-fact. “I had no way of knowing if it was real or if someone put it there to manipulate me. So I removed it, and I solved the problem.”

“Do you remember what it said?”

She stays silent. Steve understands. Interrogation is not as much fun when you’re the one under the microscope.

***

The Winter Soldier is unmasked and Steve’s world crumbles around him. “Bucky?” He whispers, the word escaping him before he can stop himself.

Bucky turns around, and it’s worse than any nightmare Steve has ever woken up from, because “Who the hell is Bucky?” is not written on Steve’s back, and Steve thought he was done finding new ways his heart could be broken.

***

“He’s gonna be there, you know.” Sam calls, and Steve shakes out of his memories. They’re standing on a bridge overlooking the trees. Sam came to tell him it’s time to go, Steve knows that. But there’s something about Sam’s stern but kind gaze that makes it okay for Steve to tell the whole story, just once.

“He was my soulmate, Sam.”

Sam steps forward. “Was?”

“I woke up and his words were gone. Changed to someone else’s. I thought it was because he was dead, but he’s not. So what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but I get it.” Sam steps forward and hikes the leg of his pants up. Written there in obnoxiously large script is _Hey, fuckface._ “If I could get Riley back, you better believe I would. But this Winter Soldier? Whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop.”

Steve stares at _Hey, fuckface_ , remembers _Oh, thank fuck, fucking Hallelujah,_ and thinks that in another life Riley and Bucky would have gotten along like a house on fire.

***

Bucky saves Steve’s life, and the first thing Steve does in the hospital is hobble over to the bathroom mirror. He takes one look at his back and slams his fist so hard into the sink that Sam comes rushing into the bathroom.

“I wanted it to be Bucky again,” Steve mumbles as he fumbles back in bed. “Because then Bucky would be Bucky again.”

“That’s not how life works, Steve,” Sam says sadly, settling into the chair next to him. “You might have to face the fact that you two just aren’t like that anymore. Are you the same as you were when you were eighteen?”

Steve pokes at a bicep. “Well these are certainly new.”

“Shut up, smartass, I’m not talking about that. You’ve been to war. You’ve killed people. People have tried to kill you, and we all thought one succeeded. You’ve learned how to adapt to a whole new life, and you think that hasn’t made you a different person?”

Steve shrugs, not willing to answer. Sam shakes his head. “Whatever, man. But just think about it. If you can’t go back, what makes you think he can?”

Steve doesn’t want to hear it then, but over the next few days he straightens himself out and apologizes to Sam. It doesn’t stop Steve from checking his back every chance he gets. No matter how many breadcrumb trails towards Bucky’s humanity they follow, Steve’s tattoo remains stubbornly unchanged.

The cat-and-mouse game they play lasts for months, until the trail ends on a chilly February day in Southern California. Bucky’s waiting for them on the beach, sitting with his legs in the sand and his arms folded up in a hoodie. They pull up in a car, and after a nudge in the ribs from Sam, Steve gets out and walks toward Bucky alone.

Bucky doesn’t move, not even when Steve sits on the sand next to him. They stare out at the water, listening to the waves crash back and forth. Long minutes pass, and then Bucky shakes his head, chuckling softly. “I bet every girl in America would kill to be in my place right now.”

Steve sucks in a breath of chilled air, twisting to look at Bucky. When he exhales shakily, it turns in a laugh. And then another laugh. Steve can’t stop laughing, is doubled over shaking with it. He laughs until tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“You okay there, buddy?” Bucky asks, and Steve sobers instantly. He stares at Bucky, memorizes how the new lines in his face roughen the familiar edges of his eyes. His hair is still long, swept up into a ponytail, and Steve loves him so much his heart constricts. If Steve’s right—and if Steve’s not right he’s gonna knock down a few buildings and drown himself in the ocean—then what Steve is about to say will already have been written on Bucky’s arm. What message can Steve send back to Bucky, what does he want Bucky to see every day and every night?

“You are incredible,” Steve whispers, “and I am so grateful to love you.”

Bucky’s eyes flicker down to his right arm, granting all of Steve’s hopes. “They took the other one from me,” Bucky says, and Steve is blindsided by the implications of that sentence. “I got this one after I visited your stupid museum.”

Steve taps his left shoulder, where his own tattoo is. “I woke up with this one. It’s not as classy as _oh thank fuck, fucking hallelujah,_ but I think we can make it work.”

Bucky’s eyes lift to meet Steve’s, and he looks as lost as Steve feels. Sam was right; going back is impossible. But here, on this beach, they could start something new.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on [tumblr!!!!!](http://linguisticjubilee.tumblr.com/)


End file.
